Appointment of Edward J. O'Connell, 20 Cleveland Street, to the Melrose Education Fund Committee for a three year term, said term to expire the last day of February, 2028.

Transcript (~9 min @ 3:12)

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▶ 3:05 Kimberly Vandiver: Um, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Uh, so that will also go back to full counsel with, uh, um, recommendation for passage. The third item on our agenda is ID number 1, 2 4, 2 2. The appointment of Edward j O'Connell 20 Cleveland Street to the Melrose Education Fund Committee for a three year term, said term to expire the last day of February, 2028. I believe we do have the mayor and Mr. O'Connell here today.

▶ 3:36 Jen Grigoraitis: Good evening, Madam Chair, Madam President and committee members. Um, before we, um, I turned it over to Mr. O'Connell. I was hoping to just take a brief moment of time to talk about this fund, since it's a relatively new thing. There is a memo in the packet explaining it. Um, and I know there's been some discussion in the public discourse, some letters to the editor that were written to the local paper. So, what, um, we can ascertain from our research is that sometime in either the late nineties or early two thousands, the city council adopted a state law. I believe it's MGL, chapter 60, section three C, that allows municipalities to list some voluntary donation funds on tax bills. So this, um, was created between 20 and 25 years ago to allow residents to choose to donate an amount of money to the Melrose Education Fund for the purpose of supplementing education. And I think the supplemental part is key. Um, the law prohibits us from using this fund to pay for recurring costs associated with running, um, schools. In the 20 plus years that this fund has been in existence, it has accumulated a total of approximately $15,000. Um, which while not an insignificant amount of money, we know when you're talking about a municipal budget of in excess of 104 million is, um, you know, gonna be used for smaller costs. So we recognize there's a broader conversation happening in the community about how we move forward with funding all of our services, city and schools. I thought it was important to make sure that these committees are staffed. Um, as you know, as dictated by law, we need to appoint for public members. And then the, the superintendent or his designee will serve on this committee so that they in turn can ascertain what to do with the $15,000 we've accumulated in the past 20 plus years. And then how best to move forward with allocating future funds. I I do wanna highlight that this is not the same as the Melrose Education Fund. We do have a really well established local nonprofit in the community that does a lot of, um, fundraising on behalf of the schools. This is a separate entity. We legally cannot transfer the funds that have been accumulated by the city to a nonprofit. I did ask the city solicitor about that. So I'm here tonight to present you with four members of the community to sort of kick off the discussion of this, um, fund. And so the first is Mr. O'Connell. I believe many of you are familiar with him. He recently served two terms, which is eight years on the Melrose School Committee. Um, so he comes with a breadth and depth of knowledge of educational issues specific to Melrose. I'm really thrilled that his willingness to take this on. He's just crossed his, uh, one year cooling off period. And we like to, we like to pull people right back in after the, um, after they're allowed to rejoin government. So I'm grateful to him for his willingness to step in here. And I'll turn it over to you, Mr. O'Connell.

▶ 6:14 Speaker 3: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh, and Madam Chair, members of the council, uh, for the opportunity to be here. Um, I'm happy to answer any questions. Um, my sense of this committee, uh, is that the order of operations is we need to review the history of donations, uh, to this fund and the investment thereof. Uh, we need clearly to establish criteria for the distribution of the funds. Uh, and I think the committee will be looking to examples from other uni municipalities. And, and I think, uh, thirdly, we need to establish the procedures for distribution of the funds, uh, working in concert with the city administration. Um, certainly part of this also, I think, will, uh, be to the extent possible, uh, raising public awareness about the existence, uh, of the fund. So, again, happy to answer any questions. Uh, pleased, uh, to have the opportunity to be of service to the community once again, and nice to be back in the room where it happens.

▶ 7:18 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. Uh, president, me.

▶ 7:20 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Um, Mr. O'Connell for stepping up again. Um, Madam Mayor, just a question for you, and I know Mr. O'Connell can probably answer this question as well. Having served on the school committee for so long, do you wanna just clarify like the non, what would, uh, non-reoccurring expenses be, or what would, you know, it's clearly not salary, just, you know, the opportunity to say that Microphone. Correct. I mean, so the

▶ 7:39 Jen Grigoraitis: state statute actually, it says the word they use is supplemental. So it's actually non-mandatory operational cost. So when you think about what it takes to run a school, we have a legal obligation to provide, um, you know, a fair education to all students. So that would be, not just recurring costs, but anything that's required to fund the school. So Right, correct. Exemptions that we would not consider would be, you know, any staff salaries, any special education costs. Um, I think curriculum materials that are currently in use, um, would be something that we should be funding through, you know, operating or recurring sources of funding. So I think this would really be looking at what are one time, um, expenses that could possibly be supplemented with this money. So I don't know what the committee will consider, but I think it could be things like technology or if there's a desire to pilot curriculum that are not yet mandatory for us to put in place, or if there's a need to supplement uniforms or instruments or, I'm thinking of things like that. I mean, also, when you're talking about $15,000 stretched across a 4,000 student school district, um, that's, that's gonna go really quickly. But I think, um, to Mr. O'Connell's point, thinking about what are the parameters for this body going forward, and particularly how do we educate the public about what it is, and also what it isn't is a really critical part. Um, I'll also just add that, um, for those serving on the committee, as you all well know that there are real restrictions around, um, public employees, um, doing active fundraising so that it's not like the committee can go out and, you know, aggressively fundraise for this. It's the kind of thing like the emergency fund where we can let folks know that it exists. And then if people choose to provide funding to it, then we'll have an ability to, um, disseminate that funding in partnership with the schools.

▶ 9:18 Leila Migliorelli: Great. Thank you. Thank you for, um, taking action and creating this, uh, uh, sending these appointees down and, um, look forward to supporting them. Thank you.

▶ 9:29 Speaker 1: Councilors, Stewart. Thank you, Madam Chair.

▶ 9:30 Robb Stewart: Thank you Madam Mayor. Mr. Cohen, for being here. Um, we, we heard, uh, some of the questions I had. Um, where does the, what is the majority of the, the, the funding sources coming from? Do we know

▶ 9:48 Jen Grigoraitis: In terms of like individual residents making donations?

▶ 9:51 Robb Stewart: Is it individuals, is businesses? Is it, is it,

▶ 9:53 Jen Grigoraitis: So it, I dunno the answer to that. Definitively, it appears on residential and I guess, um, commercial property tax bills, so we can get that breakdown. Um, but it's been, you know, having talked with the CFO, we can obviously see how the donations come in. It's a pretty just steady, it averages about $800 a year. We didn't really notice a pattern of, you know, if an override passes or fails that we start to see significant increase in donations. Um, I don't know if any are recurring. We can definitely get that information.

▶ 10:21 Robb Stewart: Yeah, just wondering if there's any way programs that can be like a state related or so forth that, that could be added to this without, to your point, aggressively fund raising, because it sounds like a, a nice little supplemental, uh, addition to, you know, the, the school system, which would be nice. Mm-hmm. Um, also, um, my question was gonna be a little more direct. Where would you like to see this, uh, be allocated? Have you put any thoughts to that? And I would direct that more to Mr. Kong.

▶ 10:54 Speaker 3: Sure. Uh, well, I, I'm one of four people to be, uh, appointed, uh, wi with leave of this body, uh, so that it'll be a committee decision. I should say that in addition to the four, uh, residents that the mayor is appointing, there is a superintendent designee, I suspect that will be the school department's financial officer, Mr. Kelly. Um, so we will certainly, uh, and we also have the benefit, uh, of having, uh, an educator, uh, to be appointed, uh, to this committee, uh, thanks to the mayor. So I, I think we'll be looking to Mr. Kelly, who I've had a long relationship with, uh, and Ms. Crookshank, um, to help lead that discussion in terms of determining where these funds might be best applied. Um, but that will certainly be a committee decision.

▶ 11:45 Robb Stewart: Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

▶ 11:48 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. Any other questions from the committee?

▶ 11:52 Speaker 1: Um, entertain a motion?

▶ 11:57 Robb Stewart: I'll make a motion to recommend to the full counsel. Second.

▶ 11:59 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. A motion to recommend, um, by, uh, uh, uh, by Counselor Stewart and, uh, second by Councillor Occhio. Um, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Uh, that will go back to the full council, um, with a motion to recommend. Thank you.